THE TOWERS OF TREBIZOND

THE TOWERS OF TREBIZOND

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize

“Take my camel, deal,” said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

So begins The Towers of Trebizond, perhaps the greatest of Rose Macaulay’s novels. In this fine and funny adventure set in the backlands of modern Turkey, a group of highly unusual travel companions makes its way from Istanbul to legendary Trebizond, encountering potion-dealing sorcerers, recalcitrant policeman, and Billy Graham on tour with a busload of Southern evangelists. Though delightfully funny throughout, the pages are shadowed by heartbreak – as the narrator confronts the spectres of ancient empires, religious turmoil, and painful memories of lost love.